A Winning Night

The ghost of Norman Mailer, who died November 10, seemed to preside over the 58th annual National Book Awards, held November 14 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City’s Times Square. Indeed, this year’s gala awards ceremony was marked by the oddly appropriate combination of an unruly picketline of strikers outside the hotel and the many heartfelt tributes by NBA award-winners to Mailer’…

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A Winning Night

Defeating Depression: Real Help for You and Those Who Love You, Howard W. Stone (Augsburg)

In Defeating Depression: Real Help for You and Those Who Love You, author Howard W. Stone, Ph.D., takes a multi-dimensional view of depression, recognizing that depression is rarely caused by a single factor and that the most effective treatments must address multiple aspects of the disorder. In support of this view, Stone offers practical, do-able tips for recognizing, evaluating, managing, and alleviating symptoms in four major categories (physiological, cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal).

In a unique twist for this market, Stone writes both to the depressed individual and that person’s friends and family, noting that while those close to a depressed individual are in the best position to offer educated support, at the same time, they are particularly susceptible to becoming caught in the web of depression as it spirals outward.

Stone is a psychologist, therapist, professor and battles depression himself. The book is in many ways a call to action against depression, countering a growing trend toward passivity in treatment. For this reason alone, it may be one of the most important and most helpful books on depression to hit the market in the last two years.

Johnson, Weiner Win National Book Awards

On March 15, 1950, a consortium of book publishing groups sponsored the first annual National Book Awards Ceremony and Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Their goal was to enhance the public’s awareness of exceptional books written by fellow Americans, and to increase the popularity of reading in general.

Since then, The National Book Awards have become the nation’s preeminent literary prizes, and The National Book Awards Ceremony and Dinner the most important event on our literary calendar. Today, the Awards are given to recognize achievements in four genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. The Winners, selected by five-member, independent judging panels for each genre, receive a $10,000 cash award and a crystal sculpture.

The Denis Johnson bulging and brilliant Vietnam War novel Tree of Smoke, published by FSG, was awarded the National Book Award for fiction at this years gala awards ceremony at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. The nonfiction award went to the damning examination of American intelligence policy, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner from Doubleday.

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Johnson, Weiner Win National Book Awards

Betting on Books: Spotlight on Young People’s Literature

Turning to the Young People’s Literature category of the National Book Awards, the finalists include three hard-hitting coming-of-age novels, two of them set within minority communities; one fantasy; and an illustrated book with a strong fantasy component.

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Betting on Books: Spotlight on Young People’s Literature